Years pass and Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe does not return home – where is your red line, Dominic Raab?

There are multiple actions our government could be taking but it seems to be burying its head in the sand and repeating the arguments and statements over and over again

Cruel and heartless. That is how I’d summarise the Iranian regime’s continued detention and mistreatment of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. They continue to use her as a political bargaining chip, a pawn in a game of geopolitical chess that includes the repaying of historic debt and the JCPOA nuclear deal talks.

Nazanin and her family have been badly let down by the government over a number of years – indeed, our prime minister, when he was foreign secretary, was responsible for much of the damage that has been done to efforts to secure her release. We’ve been through this cycle several times and every time the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office issues a statement that is heavy in condemnation but light on action.

Today, we have to say enough is enough, and accept that the current approach isn’t bringing Nazanin home. She has been sentenced to a further year in prison. Her health is deteriorating and her family is in distress. There are multiple actions our government could be taking, but Dominic Raab and Boris Johnson seem to be burying their heads in the sand and repeating the same arguments and statements.

Well, it’s been five years now. In that time, Nazanin has been separated from her family, subjected to abusive treatment and gone through multiple unfair trials. That’s why the Liberal Democrats are calling on the prime minister and the foreign secretary to act now. If Iran doesn’t start cooperating through diplomatic channels, the FCDO needs to explore taking the regime to international courts. More immediately, now is the time for coordinated Magnistky-style sanctions to be imposed on the state and non-state individuals responsible for the continuing illegal detention of a British citizen.

Because this isn’t just about one isolated, tragic case. There are others, including Anoosheh Ashoori, a British-Iranian man serving 10 years in an Iranian jail for allegedly spying on behalf of Israel. The British government has to be able to stand up for the rights of its citizens wherever they are in the world. As things stand, dual nationals are being left high and dry, with no guarantee of consular support from the UK if they are detained illegally.

If the government goes along with using Nazanin as a diplomatic tool, a negotiating method, then it is setting a dangerous and depressing precedent.

Monday’s verdict – another year in prison on a trumped-up charge – prolongs her suffering even more. My question to Dominic Raab is: where’s your red line? How many years, how many prison sentences, have to go by before you step up and change your approach? What good is a Magnistky-style sanctions regime if it can’t help protect people like Nazanin? What good is so-called “Global Britain” if it can’t protect its own when they are in distress?

The Iranian government insists this is about debt owed by the UK when it failed to deliver tanks in 1979. The government has now accepted that it owes the money. So when is this debt going to be settled? And if we do that and Nazanin still isn’t freed, what then? Will we consider targeted sanctions at that point?

This is about our foreign policy strategy but at the root of all this is an isolated woman who has been traumatised and mistreated for five years now. We mustn’t forget that.

Yes, for Iran this is part of wider diplomatic manoeuvring that includes the nuclear deal renegotiations but we can’t simply play their game and accept that’s what this is. Because if we do, we’re telling regimes around the world that they can detain British citizens to get what they want, that (worst of all) our dual nationals are almost fair game.

The government must make clear that human rights – and the rights and freedoms of its own citizens – always come first, and that we will take measures to protect them if we have to. Otherwise, we’re fundamentally letting down a woman who needs our urgent protection, her distraught husband and their young daughter.

Layla Moran is a Liberal Democrat MP and spokesperson for foreign affairs